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Ted Desta

The 7th Africana Post-Graduate Academy was held on August 17, 2017. The postgraduate students came from all the human, social, natural and engineering sciences. The lectures started with Prof. Mammo Muchie strongly arguing why in countries like South Africa there is a need to establish a continuous researching and learning process with the establishment and inclusion of all universities in South Africa through consolidating , resourcing and activating the Africana post-Graduate Academy(AGPA). It is the best way to create an avenue for creating high quality and inspired graduates by removing any supervision deficit in all the universities both in South Africa and in much of the rest of Africa.

Focus on social entrepreneurship

S. R. Praveen

Prof. Mammo Muchie urges innovators to have a non-profit dimension

From someone immersed in the field of innovation, Mammo Muchie’s concerns also extend to the destruction, of jobs and livelihood, that innovation and the march of technology leaves in their wake. Muchie, the Research Chair and Professor of Economics Research on Innovation at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa, spoke to The Hindu on the challenges thrown up by technological advancement.

“We have now entered the fourth industrial revolution, one which deals with knowledge and innovation. Here, we are not dealing with incremental technologies. What we now have are exponential technologies, the pace of growth of which is causing dramatic effects. The more technology takes control, the more impact it has on the people. Human relationships are changing, some are failing to cope with the changes. We need to think on whether this growth is destructive or constructive, and devise ways to make it constructive,” says Mr.Muchie.

He says that there needs to be correctives to ensure that the creative destruction by technology changes into creative construction.

Zero jobs

“If the technology trend goes on like this, without value change, we will create zero jobs. We will have a situation where many people will be out of jobs, which they have been holding for many years. What do the people do then? There should be a balance between what is created and destroyed, so that the sociological impact of technology is minimised. Automation should have its limits,” he says.

According to Prof.Muchie, entrepreneurship should not be just individual-centric, rather we should create social entrepreneurship.

“The industries can generate profit, but there should be non-profit dimension too. A new language, beyond that of profit, should be created. When the gain is calculated, it should not be calculated not just on the economical gain, but the social or even environmental gain,” he says. He says that these conversations should happen among stakeholders, in Governments, in private companies and amongst communities. “Technology can do many things, but unless it is connected to the human values. I think these conversations that are happening in the academic sphere should happen among the various stakeholders. If there is no such engagement between everyone, there is not much use having sustainable developmental goals,” he says.

Prof.Muchie says that the process should happen from the student community, as he is doing at his own institution.

Work together

“One of the things I do is to make sure that the students create together. They work together as competitors, and more importantly as friends, in creating socially relevant solutions,” he says.

He will be delivering a lecture on ‘Know Africa – History, Development and Science’ at the Institution of Engineers hall in the city on Monday at 5 p.m.

Hosted at Tshwane University of Technology with the Directorate of Research & Innovation, Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), SARChI Chair in Foreign Diplomacy, University of Johannesburg (UJ) & SAChI Chair in Innovation Studies, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa

Title: Quality Research Writing and Publishing with Relevance for High Rating and Impact Output

Background

All advances in scientific understanding, at every level, begin with a speculative adventure, an imaginative preconception of what might be true- a preconception which always, and necessarily, goes a little way (and sometimes, a long way) beyond anything which we have logical or factual authority to believe in. It is the invention of a possible world, or of a tiny fraction of that world. The conjecture is then exposed to criticism to find out whether or not that imagined world is anything like the real one. Scientific reasoning is therefore, at all levels an interaction between two episodes of thought - a dialogue between two voices, the one imaginative and the other critical, a dialogue, if you like, between the possible and the actual, between proposal and disposal, conjecture and criticism, between what might be true and what is in fact the case (Medawar,The Hope of Progress, Methuen, London, 1972,p.22).

Let us explore approaches to undertake research with the objective of how to both write and publish high quality output with impact and rating. To begin with, let us acknowledge that we can always do research without having detailed knowledge of various approaches and styles of research; but it is helpful to have an understanding of the different approaches of, for and in doing research. Insight into planning a research investigation can be facilitated by first learning the different approaches of why and how research has been done! Exposure to literature that enhances a better understanding of one’s own research can be gained by first examining the different approaches. Thus, there is a spill over effect, even though it may not directly be relevant to the problem one is embarking upon to investigate and research. So on balance, familiarity with different approaches is necessary though it may not be the tool that is chosen to do one’s own specific research. It is also important to undertake an appropriate literature review to understand the topic of investigation, to record the knowledge of what has been accomplished already, the ways other research related to the topic of interest have been undertaken before, to recognise and know the evidence or proof of strong understanding of previous work done on the topic of one’s research, to review all relevant theories pertinent to the research question, and the way the relevant theories have been applied and used, as well as the main criticisms of the weaknesses and strengths of the theories and generally of the work pertinent to the research selected for carrying out a specific line or angle of inquiry.

The strategies for doing research recognise that researchers face both choices and constraints in the process of doing research. Decisions of which choice to make, which direction to take, which is more appropriate for doing given research as opposed to others is not a straight forward matter. Given a number of choices available, making a choice requires evaluation, judgment, an expectation of what to achieve and an understanding of the problem and context of the choices, the resources needed, and other implications. How to discover the choices that promote better research strategies than others is a challenge. The key challenge is to make choices that are better suited to promote better research strategies than others with relevance, feasibility, coverage, accuracy, objectivity and ethical considerations.. The 7th AGPA will focus on making sure all the doctoral candidates fully learn the following:Approaches, strategies, methods, and analytical techniques, with creativity and innovation in carrying out quality research for high level rating and impact. Writing and publication skills for producing high quality research output are the expected outcomes for the 7th AGPA training to enrich all the emerging doctoral scholars that volunteer to join us and learn with us.

The students must send their presentation in advance in order to receive very constructive feedback from professors and post-docs and from each other. Students not only give presentations they should also learn to provide feedback. So we have strong interactive rich learning environment.

Programme

Registration

8:45-9:00

Welcome address

Programme Director

VC and /DVC Research, TUT (invited)

Dr. Rita Raseleka

9:00-9:10

9:10- 9:15

Opening remarks

Prof Chris Landsberg, UJ & Prof Mammo Muchie

9:15-10:00

Lecture sessions

Speakers

Topics

Time

Dr.Diran Soumonni

"Knowledge, Truth and Belief (Ontology and Epistemology): 'Ways of Knowing'".

10:00-10:30

Prof. Mammo Muchie

Research for Writing and Publishing for achieving highly Rated and Impactful Quality Output

They all can also join the learning through doing interactive innovative and creative feedback on the work presented in each panel. We will be able to construct the panels by taking into consideration the disciplines and the research similarity to form the panels by including all to generate enduring networks amongst the post-graduate doctoral emerging scholars.

We expect 50 doctoral emerging scholars and 5 panels will be formed where we expect 10 doctorates in each panel... There will be at least one senior mentor and post doc in each panel to give feedback. The doctorates are also expected to give feedback to each other’s work.

We expect all to attend the afternoon where the interactive learning with the means of panel presentations will be taking place.